


goodbye, my almost lover

by griffenly



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-03-31 23:34:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3997420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/griffenly/pseuds/griffenly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She leaves. He stays. (Isn't that how all great tragedies begin?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	goodbye, my almost lover

He didn’t have time to say it back.

It was the only thought running through his head, at that moment, as he watched the darkness weave a tangled knot around her body, as his eyes locked with hers and he saw the strength and the bravery and Emma, his beautiful Swan, trying to stand on trembling legs. 

The dagger clattered uselessly to the ground, and suddenly the entire world was deathly silent, and he knew that there were others there (her parents and Robin and Regina, Regina who she’d tried to save) but he moved on unsteady legs towards the object, towards the last piece he had of his beautiful princess.   
And where once the name of his enemy had been emblazoned onto the silver blade, there, now, was hers; shimmering in the moonlight. (It reminded him of his hook, for some unholy reason.) He held the object in his good hand, and it was only when he saw the dagger shake that he realized it was because of the sobs ripping through his body, because - because Emma was gone.

She had had to watch him die, and he knew, now, how it felt. It felt like someone had ripped out his heart and burned it alive. It felt like death, but only worse.

“Killian…” 

A hand was clamping over his shoulder, but he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

(He didn’t have time to say it back.) 

And, Gods above, he would have. Of course he would have.

He had been in love with Emma Swan since she’d held a dagger to his neck with her hair like sunshine and lips like the petals on the flowers his mother had once loved. 

(He would love her until the end of the world. Or time.) 

“Henry,” he rasped, standing (when had he fallen to his knees?). “We have to get to Henry.” 

He finally made eye contact with the people around him, and it nearly broke him again: Snow, her mouth agape and tears traipsing down her face unbidden; David, his face solemn as he stood in front of Killian, but his eyes betrayed him (much as Emma’s always did); Regina, guilt and anguish and unadulterated pain carved into her quaking lips. Robin clutched at her, his eyes revealing the equal parts of devastation and relief, because it would have been Regina, after all. Regina would have tumbled away in that cocoon of blackness, and it would have been Robin standing there, his fingers tightly clenched around the final bit of his love left in the world.

David nodded once at him, and he led Snow by the hand, as Robin led Regina, to go speak to the boy.

And Killian stood, in the middle of an empty street, with unspoken words on his lips and an ache in his chest where his heart once stood, and he stared at the space where Emma had stood just moments ago, a torrent of blonde hair and determined eyes.

She said she loved him, and he didn’t have time to say it back.


End file.
